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While there are many ways to interpret this work, I\'m most interested in the final verse and how it compares to the others. The initial verses are about a single, famous, figure from history; This figure is betrayed and destroyed for the virtuous principle they are most identified with. Each time we are asked to consider whether the principle they clung to was, indeed, virtuous.In the final verse we are, by extension, seeking to identify an iconic figure, betrayed by some group of people, holding to and being destroyed by some supposed virtue. And we are asked to consider whether the world is improved by that virtue.The supposed virtue is directly stated: \"fear of God\".The icon? The respectable folk who follow \"God\'s own laws\", or, more succinctly: the religious.The betrayers? \"You who sit safe and warm indoors\"In the end Brecht asks us to consider whether following God\'s law is a virtue in the face of those who sit idly by.

| Posted on 2012-02-05 | by a guest

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In part the poem is of the paradox of virtue. How great we praise it when it suits our need. How soon we condemn it when it does not. How soon we abandon it when we fail,The world merely observes without care or concern. We are insignificant after all.